KUALA LUMPUR – Nvidia is in advanced talks with Malaysian power-to-property conglomerate YTL on a data centre deal, three sources familiar with the matter said, as the United States chip giant looks for more business from South-east Asia.

The potential tie-up would include collaborating on cloud infrastructure, and is likely to be anchored at YTL’s data centre complex in the southern Malaysian state of Johor, one of the sources said.

The partnership would target businesses in South-east Asia, providing them with access to Nvidia’s artificial intelligence (AI) chips via cloud computing, a second person briefed on the matter said.

Nvidia chief executive officer Jensen Huang, who was visiting Malaysia on Dec 8, declined to comment directly on a potential deal.

“YTL is an extraordinary company, (Malaysia) is an important hub for SEA (South-east Asia) computing infrastructure, which requires access to land, facilities and power, and YTL could play a great role in that,” he told Reuters at a news conference. “It would be a privilege for us to partner with YTL in any way.”

YTL, whose telecoms division agreed to a cloud gaming partnership with Nvidia in 2023, did not immediately respond to a request for comment.

Nvidia is based in Santa Clara, California.

South-east Asia has become increasingly important for it as a “growing technology hub”, with Mr Huang telling reporters he was considering AI infrastructure projects in Singapore or Malaysia.

He said this week that the company would “potentially announce some large investments” in Singapore. About US$2.7 billion (S$3.6 billion), or 15 per cent, of the company’s revenue in the quarter that ended in October came from Singapore, a 401 per cent jump from the same period in 2022.

Singapore hosts many of the Asian headquarters of US and Chinese technology giants, and more than 1,100 AI start-ups.

Mr Huang told reporters on Dec 8 that Nvidia was working with 80 start-ups in Malaysia. REUTERS